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Thursday, June 4, 2009

In April, Jared fell down the deck steps at Shane's parents' house. The next day, I decided I better take him to the pediatrician to see if his collarbone was broken. On the way there, he started breathing really funny. Dr. Manfroy looked him over and said his collarbone was definitely broken, but the bigger problem was his breathing, either Jared was having an asthma attack or his lung was punctured from the fall the previous day. Dr. Manfroy told me to take him straight to the hospital!

It was a rough ride to the hospital. Jared kept choking on gunk in his throat and then dozing off. I wasn't sure if he was sleeping or losing consciousness due to lack of oxygen. I finally found Children's Hospital downtown and rushed him in.

The doctor had called ahead and so a trauma unit was waiting. All of a sudden, Jared was on an exam bed and about a dozen people were around him and me. They got an IV going and had a mask on him, giving him a breathing treatment. Jared kept screaming, "I wanna go home now!" I kept telling him I did too, but we had to help him get better. They needed to give him liquid steroids and asked me if I wanted to give it to him. You BET I did! I sat on the bed with him, held him, and gave him the steroids to open his breathing passages. The doctors brought in a portable X-ray machine and X-rayed his chest right on the bed.

They determined that his lung was not punctured, but he was having a severe asthma attack. We ended up spending the night at Children's Hospital. Jared had breathing treatments every hour at first and eventually it stretched to every four hours. When that happened, they let us go home.

Before we left the hospital, I asked if I could see his chest X-rays. It was so weird to me that he had a broken collarbone, but no one seemed to care about it. Their whole focus was his breathing problem. If fact, Jared was not put in a brace or anything. His collarbone just healed on its own over then next 4 weeks.

Our pediatrician put Jared on children's Claritin for the next month to help control his allergies and that has helped keep the asthma under control. For several weeks, I didn't have to give him a breathing treatment. While my parents were here 2 weeks ago, Jared was coughing up a storm and did have to take albuterol a few times. But, he is doing great. All in all, the whole experience left me even more grateful that our children have been so healthy. And I was thrilled with the staff at Children's Hospital. They took very good care of us.

Jared in the emergency room having a breathing treatment. Me holding Jared between breathing treatments.

Jared didn't always like putting on the mask, so Shane took a turn!

Jared getting another chest X-ray.

Still in the emergency room. Jared was playing with his cars. Bobbye brought Mikayla down with an overnight bag for me and Jared's precious cars.This is Jared in his little hospital gown in his hospital room. He wanted me to sleep with him part of the night in his bed. I got about 40 minutes sleep that night.This is a stuffed fox that the emergency room staff brought to Jared to help him calm down. At first, he hated it. Later that night he had relaxed and came to love it. He named him Foxy!